WORLD OF MUSIC ; PORTABLE KEYBOARD - Information and updates on the latest and popular Portable Keyboards

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The Nord Electro 3 Hammer Action Portable ( HP in short) possess all the features of it’s predecessor Electro 3 but, is enhances with new Hammer Action Portable keybed, 4 selectable Dynamic Response Curve, a Delay Effect, Long Release mode, String Resonance-control and Extended Control Pedal .

The Nord Electro 3 HP is compatible with the acclaimed Nord Piano and Nord Sample Libraries - including access to Mellotron and Chamberlin sounds and a wide selection of quality sounds from leading sample producers. The new weighted keys Electro 3 HP carries across the tonewheel and transistor modelling of the Nord C1 organ and rotary speaker simulation too. You can select a dynamic curve to suit your playing style and there are four variations, and Nord have developed a new “Long Release” mode that you can select for a smooth legato style. Other effects include a flexible Delay which has a stereo “ping-pong” mode, Tap-Tempo, Rate and Amount. Live locations get ‘upped’ as well in the new model - from 1 to 4 , offering greater degree of of experimentation with regard to sounds and associated settings. Program access too has been improved providing the user with a faster, more efficient ‘button pressing’ sequence and ease of use during a performance.

Nord fans would love this new and weighted keyboard with the emphasis on playability and portability. Weighing merely 11 kg with 73-keys Hammer Action Portable keybed, the ultra portable professional Hammer Action keyboard sets it apart from the current competition. The Nord Electro 3 HP is ideal from gigs to stage performances and studio sessions.

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Yamaha’s new Piaggero NP series NP31 Keyboard features 76 full-sized keys with Graded Soft Touch, Advanced Wave Memory (AWM) Stereo Sampling technology, built-in Stereo Speaker System, Max. 32-note Polyphony, Effects; Reverb - 4 types, 10 Preset Voices; electric piano, organ, harpsichord, strings and vibraphone and Preset Piano songs; 10 voice and 10 piano demo - each with dedicated Voice select buttons, battery power or AC adaptor, eco-friendly mode.

The Yamaha Piaggero NP31 is compact, stylish and ultra-portable. Weighing just 12 pounds and operating on just 6 AA batteries, makes it an ideal choice for gigging musicians. The NP31 gives you the look and feel of a qual­ity stage piano with­out the price tag. It has 76 Graded Soft-Touch keys that, although not hav­ing a true piano feel, offers a more real­is­tic feel and tone than many other mod­els in the price range, thanks to Yamaha’s Advanced Wave Memory Stereo Sampling technology. With Yamaha’s Dynamic Voice Allocation, 32-notes is all a pianist needs to play and sustain notes naturally. In addition, with built-in ultra-natural piano voices, the NP31 can be use as a MIDI controller for home studio.

The NP31 has a very tidy pair of six-watt ampli­fiers for the stereo speak­ers means you can plug in your portable instrument or load it with bat­ter­ies and start play­ing straight away. The NP31 is also user-friendly, at the front panel a recessed power but­ton and rotary con­trol for the vol­ume give you a smoother and more del­i­cate touch to how loud you want to play, and dedicated buttons for each voice. Fur­ther­more, Yamaha have included an eco-friendly mode fea­ture that turns the key­board off after 30 min­utes of inac­tiv­ity. This new and robust 76-key digital piano pleases the piano purists - demanding portability, interactive features and superior piano Voice quality, for performing or practicing piano anywhere…

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The mini-keyed Korg microPiano digital piano features 61-key Natural Touch mini keyboard, 61 varied sounds - including 25 Short Phase Sounds; like electric pianos, harpsichords, accordion, celeste, organs, clavs, toy pianos, and many more, Max. 120 notes Polyphony, 40 demo songs, built-in speakers, battery power option. Build on ‘micro’ concept, the mini keyboard is surprisingly playable, and could be use as a serious instrument in the studio and at gigs.

The microPiano with up to 61 onboard sounds - changed by holding the sounds button and pressing any of the keys - the highlights include the piano, electric piano and the piano/string layers. They are great and inspiring to play, with its simple concept and general sound, and can be battery powered too. However, other onboard sounds like pipe organs, toy pianos, a clavinet, celeste, vibes, steel pans and some phases and demo songs are not as useful but, may appeal to the home piano users. The built-in speakers are a little underpowered but opening/shutting the lid enables you some extra options in terms of projecting the sound.

The Korg microPiano really does sound great for what looks like a toy, with some good pianos and electric pianos onboard. Use it on a gig or at a live performance. Perhaps, the Korg microPiano short fall is limited connectivity - no MIDI and no USB port therefore, the instrument is unable to integrate with computers and other studio gear. Weighing merely 11. 46 lbs, the portable keyboard is compact and looks great.. Additionally, the microPIANO is also an ideal choice for a child’s piano practice.

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The Roland JUPITER-80 Synthesizer is akin to a story of two synthesizers. The Jupiter-80 focuses on being a live-performance synthesizer for live playing, and a synthesizer  with an array of sounds. It features 76-note semi-weighted synthesizer keyboard with SuperNATURAL sound engine, Behavior Modeling technology, max. 256-Voices Polyphony, color touchscreen, USB-MIDI/Audio interface, Tone Blender, D Beam controller.

What sets Roland Jupiter-80 apart from the synthesizers today? Normally, when a keyboardist is trying to reproduce sounds other than a traditional keyboard instrument on the synthesizer, the typical sound engine inside cannot truly “interpret” an expressive keyboard performance done on keys into an authentic guitar, trumpet, or violin performance. Similarly, in other big computer sample libraries you will find all sorts of tricks for key switching and sample variations and other ways of providing the full range of instrumental articulations on a keyboard. The SuperNATURAL synthesis engine makes those massive sounds more playable, thanks to Roland’s newly developed Behavior Modeling technology. Behavior Modeling takes care of the interpretation by constantly analyzing the keyboardist normal, natural keyboard performance, and instructs the ultra-realistic SuperNATURAL sound engines inside the Jupiter-80 to “play” and constantly “articulate” the reproduced sound just as the “real” performer would based on the keyboardists timing and interval between notes, the strength at which the various keys are struck, or if the keyboardist is pressing a pedal to sustain notes. These actions, among others available to the keyboardist, are translated by the behavior model for the selected sound being reproduced into an authentic plucked or strummed performance in the case of a guitar, aggressive or smooth bowing in the case of a violin, and the sharp or smooth pitch changes created by the valves on a trumpet and the pressure of the trumpet player’s breath. These are some of the articulations with behavior modeling.

Additionally, the Jupiter-80 architecture enables the use of four tones, each with its own effects block, each with independent controls, on each of two layers - upper and lower - plus solo and percussion voices. The upper and lower voices each have reverb - solo and percussion have compressor, EQ, and delay. Touch-button access makes it relatively easy to mix sounds. Start with splits and layers, and you are ready to use the massive sound content to produce big hybrid textures while Tone Blender then enables you to work more with movement. The Roland JUPITER-80 is a dream come true for live-performers and gigging musicians love this powerhouse synthesizer.

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Avid’s M-Audio Venom is a 49-key, 12-voice polyphony, multi-timbral, virtual-analog synthesizer that set a new mark along these lines. The Venom offers a variety of performance controls for real-time tone shaping and can serve as a USB MIDI controller and 24-bit audio interface with microphone, line, and instrument inputs. It can also function as a standalone effects processor. The Venom features free Vyzex editor for Mac and PC, 512 single patches and 256 multi-patch combinations, Two Global Effects; Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Flanger, and Phaser, and 1 insert effect per multitimbral part ( 4 total); Compression, EQ, Distortion, Bit Reduction and Decimation.

The M-Audio Venom uses a newly designed “virtual analog” synth engine intended to offer a unique sonic signature, with the flexibility of digital operation but the warmth and grit of analog-emulation circuitry. M Audio certainly thought hard about how to pack Venom with great-sounding patches. Each one of the 512 single programs has, at its core, at least one sample of a classic synthesizer or drum machine waveform. The architecture of the synth section is three-oscillator, with each able to access any of the 41 waveforms or 53 drum sounds. It is a potent mix and the sounds are wonderful. But, the unique M-Audio Venom twist is that there is a tube saturation stage at the multi-mode filter which can be over-driven. Meaning that as well as being able to offer multiple filter modes; low, high and band, 2 and 4 pole, either 12 or 24dB of roll-off per octave, it is possible to internally distort signals. Additionally, each program can access three LFOs, three AHDSR envelopes and 16 separate modulation routing options, while effects provision comes in the form of two buses effects with Reverb, Delay, Chorus, Flanger and Phaser options.

The three arpeggiation modes are  Standard, Phrase and Drum. To modify the Arpeggiator from the front panel is rather restricted but, you can do more via the Vyzex software. Vyzex software is well designed and opens Venom up to much more sound programming. The immediacy of accessing the sounds and modifying them in real-time is intuitive and impressive. For sound designers, the Vyzex software editor is just for you and M-Audio Venom will exceed your expectations too.  A Phenomenal Synthesizer, indeed!


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